Terrorist Sabotage Ruled out in Israeli Barracks Blaze

December 16, 1985

TEL AVIV (Dec. 15)

Terrorist sabotage has been ruled out as the cause of a fire that swept a military barracks in the West Bank last Monday, killing eight soldiers and injuring seven, according to an interim report by a special team investigating the blaze.

But the exact cause has not yet been established, Brig. Gen. Avram Mitznar, head of the investigating team, said in a report submitted to Chief of Staff Gen. Moshe Levy. The interim report established that the eight soldiers died of asphyxiation by carbon monoxide fumes and were probably dead or unconscious by the time the flames reached them.

The fumes were generated by combustible materials used to build the pre-fabricated barracks which were purchased from the American firm which built the Negev airfields several years ago.

Levy said today the army would apply the lessons from the tragedy, including a limitation on the number of soldiers housed in such pre-fabricated barracks.